Tweet This

Photo by: John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx 2018 10/3/18 Will Smith at Advertising Week in New York City.

New York Advertising Week is just about to wind down after a whirlwind of panel discussions, awards, parties and, of course, celebrity sessions with notables from actor Will Smith to television personality Katie Couric. But one particularly hot topic that will reverberate in the minds of all those attended and beyond is the sizzling new opportunity around voice-activated devices and advertising. Quite simply, delivering a strong sonic brand identity is a major trend that is building. However, there are a number of considerations to ensure that yours is not simply akin to that of the philosophical thought experiment of a tree falling in the woods.

Essentially, by next year half of all searches will be via voice and so few brands are prepared to take full advantage of this behavioral shift that Advertising Week decided to dedicate a panel to the subject. Insightful and eye-opening, this discussion centered around how brands can better use voice-activated smart speakers to connect with consumers.

It's a fast-building area where the battle is on for domination of consumers attention via audio format. What we are talking about is something like an ad but not an ad. Similar to the old days of audio production for radio, before television existed, there is a new fervor around audio content creation that does one better than the radio ads of yesteryear.

Picture your average consumer interacting with their Google voice or Amazon voice device asking various search-related questions about products or situations as they are going about their early evening routine at home. Now picture 70 million of them soon, and you've got a situation where the stakes become quite interesting for the right brand to problem-solve for appropriate consumer questions and dilemmas, provide value and begin a relationship in a more intimate way than anything that television or mobile currently offers.

"Consumers are curious and asking questions," explains Pat Higbie, CEO Xapp Media. "The brand that gives the answer is the winner. The intent is to create an interactive experience that responds to search and provides answers via prompt."

Higbie presented a demonstration of work his company recently did for Toyota on behalf of an advertising agency. After a series of questions and answers on SUVs, the experience even extended into the prompt requesting if a text message could be sent as a follow up to the consumer.

Home Living With Lenovo Smart Display With Google AssistantCourtesy Lenovo

Thus one can hardly take the "build it and they will come" approach. To win this game, the panel suggested that brands need to fully promote the experience with such tools as a Voice Landing Page.

Indeed, Suzanne Grimes, EVP/President Cumulus Media/Westwood One offered case studies around voice that the company conducted for the Olympics and March Madness where the key for engagement success rested within integration of voice into the entire marketing campaign for such efforts.

"But one of the biggest challenges with all this is that the experiences aren’t really experiences," explained Douglas Rozen CMO of 360i. "They are utility. " Thus he discussed work in deploying voice apps for Bravo Tango but what was particularly intriguing was the company's work around the voice app for Westworld. Created by a team of over 100 people, the app demonstrated an average engagement time over 15-16 minutes, according to Rozen, and over one billion interactions. Consumers gravitated to the app not for standard, practical information about the show but instead to help uncover plot twists and more for a show that is notorious for a complex storyline. The offering rang true for fans of the show who typically have tons of questions and thoughts.

Thandie Newton, winner of the award for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for "Westworld" poses in the press room at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, Sept. 17, 2018, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Andreas Westfield, Associate Director, Digital Investment, Spark added that voice apps, quite simply, are also good for brands because the process also builds authority for the company. He cited an example of work for his company's client, Mattress Firm, and how the voice experience is designed to provide unique sleep tips and more so that a robust encounter is offered by the brand in the sleep space, overall.

Yet Higbie suggests that the real secret is to constantly re-tune one's campaign even after launch. "Because all of this is steeped in natural language processing (NLP), it is important to refine and review each month."

In this June 14, 2018, photo, Gareth Gaston, Executive Vice President and Head of Omnichannel Banking at US Bank, discusses voice assistant banking with an Amazon Echo, left, and a Google Home, right, in New York. Big banks and financial companies have started to offer banking through virtual assistants, Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant, in a way that will allow customers to check their balances, pay bills and, in the near future, send money just with their voice. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

This step is particularly crucial as the frequency and number of questions from consumers to their voice-activated devices are becoming more and more extensive. Adds Higbie, "People are asking everything and anything now. It's about getting into the game of providing the best answers."

My ebook "America's Most Wanted: The Millennial - how to quad decode and trend forecast" can be found here.

I am a digi-cultural trend analyst, author, speaker, and strategist. My expertise is deciphering and forecasting power trends and public sentiment within the convergent area of pop culture, millennials & emerging tech behavior and analyzing their impact on business and ...